New DNC Russia “Collusion” Lawsuit Looks Like a Fundraising Gambit

The following article is special to RedState from one of our Beltway Insiders.

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The Washington Post is reporting that the Democratic National Committee has “filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit… against the Russian government, the Trump campaign and the WikiLeaks organization alleging a far-reaching conspiracy to disrupt the 2016 campaign and tilt the election to Donald Trump.”

On the face of it, the lawsuit looks laughable. (Though the Post write-up does contain this interesting note: “The lawsuit describes how the then-Soviet Union paid for Trump to travel Moscow in the 1980s.” So we supposed it was not just Bernie Sanders hanging out in the U.S.S.R. back in the day).

However, absurd as it may seem from a legal standpoint, the lawsuit might have an alternate purpose: Enabling the financially beleaguered committee a fresh opportunity to dip into donors’ pockets, and potentially one to energize smaller dollar donors who it needs in order to put its most competitive foot forward this November.

In 2017, the DNC raised just half that of its GOP counterpart, the Republican National Committee (RNC). It was reported earlier today that the RNC raised $13.8 million last month, and ended the month with $42.9 million cash on hand, and zero debt. Contrast that with the DNC, which has not yet reported its numbers but finished February with only $10 million on hand.

Those numbers should have the DNC eagerly shopping for a fundraising gambit, and with legal funds taking off, including those set up for figures involved in the Russia investigation and viewed favorably by Democrats like Andrew McCabe, the lawsuit looks like a potential money-maker for the DNC.

Of course, should it be allowed to proceed, another upside to its filing might come with the discovery process. That’s where, should any actual evidence of collusion exist, it might become known.

It’s hard to believe, however, that the lawsuit would uncover anything that the investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III has not. Trump is reportedly not a target of the Mueller probe, though it has resulted in the indictment of several Russians, and criminal charges for some Trump campaign personnel– as well as Hillary Clinton pal Tony Podesta, a now-disgraced former lobbyist busted by Mueller for doing undisclosed work on behalf of Russian interests.

The Post notes that suing a foreign country in a U.S. court could prove tricky. It also notes the lawsuit ploy looks like a redux of a tactic used by the DNC in 1972, in the context of the Watergate scandal. That lawsuit did yield $750,000 in damages– but that’s a trivial sum compared to what the DNC might be able to bank by hyping the lawsuit to an energized, #resist-minded base ahead of November.

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Source: https://www.redstate.com/rs_insider/2018/04/21/new-dnc-russia-collusion-lawsuit-looks-like-fundraising-gambit/